


FF#4: Alone with You

by CJ_fics



Series: Olicity Flash Fic Challenge [3]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Felicity and Laurel talk, Not really anti-Laurel, Team Arrow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-03 01:49:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2833742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CJ_fics/pseuds/CJ_fics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felicity and Laurel have a conversation about Team Arrow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	FF#4: Alone with You

There are conversations that are long overdue. That needed to happen. Words that needed to be said. Feelings that needed to be expressed. To clear the air. To get the status quo back. To re-start at square one. To be at rest. 

  
Gosh, one would think that having lived with rambling inner thoughts for the last 27 years would get one used to it. Now I've gone and included 'maudlin' to my rambling head. Yikes.  
  
Off-tangential meanderings like the one that just happened, I'm used to.   
  
But yeah, overdue conversations. One of them began a minute ago (or has it been five? Oops…), and I need to get out of my head to take part in it. Because this conversation needs to happen. Not for me, I don't think. But for her.  
  
"Hey, Laurel." A minute (or is it five?) ago, Laurel Lance awkwardly (as awkwardly as Gorgeous, Composed, Prim and Proper Laurel Lance could ever be) asked if she could talk to me. Now that we found ourselves alone in the new Arrow lair.  
  
She looks a bit surprised at my words, which leads me to think that I've been lost in my rambling inner thoughts (good name for a hipster band, methinks -- _stop it, brain!_ ) for much longer than a minute.  
  
"I wanted to take this opportunity to talk to you, Felicity. I understand that we've never actually gotten to get to know each other. And I think that's a shame because we're the only female members of this team, and surely that's got to mean something, no? Sisterhood and all that …"   
  
Wow. I get a feeling that she really, really, really doesn't want to have this conversation. I'm internally wincing (hopefully just internally!) at this. I wonder if someone put her up to this? Oliver? Digg?  
  
"No one put me up to this, Felicity," she winces. "Well, not really. Oliver may have hinted that my membership to the team won't work, if the other members don't accept me. And with the way John keeps close to you whenever I'm present, I get the implication that his acceptance of me depends on your approval. But I'm not being forced to talking to you. I really do want to get to know you. I think you're great. And valuable to the team."  
  
Laurel is fidgeting now. Wow. I didn't ever think that she would do something so … not perfect. I kinda feel bad for her. Err, well keeping in mind what she has been through in the last seven years, forget the ' _kinda_ '. I feel bad for her. I sympathise and empathise. I wouldn't wish her life on even the girls who dumped pineapple shake on my head in high school. On my birthday. For four years. Do you know how hard it is to wash pineapple fibres from long hair? _Ugh. Stop it, brain!_  
  
Right. Alleviate Gorgeous Laurel's awkward and unwarranted need for my approval. She's had a tough enough life.  
  
"Laurel, you wouldn't be part of this team, if Oliver didn't get a go-ahead from Digg, Roy and I. We obviously did since you have access to the new headquarters now, the boys are training you, and you're just about to go on your first field mission, right?" I stand up from my computer chair (funnily enough, Slade's thugs kept it intact and we were able to bring it from the old lair), and stand in front of her.   
  
"But, Laurel, I'll be honest with you. It will take time for the rest of the team to get used to having you as a member. That's just the way things go. It took time for Digg and I to get used to having Roy when he first joined us. Same with Sara. Heck, it took time for Oliver, Digg and I to get used to working together! My first day as part of the team, I quit! Yeah, funny story. I locked Oliver in the old lair because he was going to Arrow some guy who was a widower dad, and I thought Oliver needed a chill pill before he went and confronted the guy. Oliver went all growly and tried to scare the shit out of me -- and he did. So I quit. Told him that my joining the team was a mistake -- and I left --"  
  
"How did you become part of the team again?" she interrupts.  
  
"Oh, Oliver and Digg showed up the next day at work and Oliver apologised and then assured me that he didn't put an arrow on that widower dad, just gave him a warning. And then they took me to lunch at Big Belly, where Oliver said we could try to do things my way."  
  
"Ollie apologised?"  
  
Maybe "Ollie" wasn't the apologising kind, but the Oliver I know was great at making amends with me. "Well, yeah. Why wouldn't he? … Anyway, the point is that, adjustments need to be made by everyone in the team when there are new members. Compromises. Re-configurations. That's all part of team-building, right?"  
  
"Right. But you don't like me very much, do you, Felicity?"  
  
Wow. Her lawyer-hood is showing. She got me to ramble, got me comfortable, and then just went for the jugular. Kinda amazing.  
  
"No, not really, Laurel." Hey, she's not the only one who can be blunt here.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Are you seriously asking me why I don't like you, Laurel? Why should I have to have a reason? Is it really that unthinkable that a person would not like you?" Now I'm just being petty. I need to stop. But she used her lawyer skills on me! And I have to shore up my defenses and not let her get to me.  
  
"No, it's just that, you don't seem to be the kind of person that doesn't not-like anyone for no reason."  
  
"Oh. Well, it's not that I don't like you, Laurel. I don't know you enough to form that kind of opinion on you. The few times we interacted before this conversation now, you kind of dismissed me as unimportant," I shrug.   
  
"I'm sorry--"  
  
I hold my right hand up to stop her. "It's OK, Laurel. I was nothing to you. I am nothing to you. I'm just a member of the team. Just as you are. We don't have like each other. We don't have to be friends. You know, no need for slumber parties, girls night out, spa days, or whatever female friends do to prove friendship. We can just be team members who work together with three other people to have save Starling City. And that would be fine."  
  
"Are you just team members with Oliver, John and Roy?".   
  
"To varying degrees, yes and no. Digg and I, we're friends. We hang out. I help him with electrical and plumbing repairs in his apartment. I would be very, very, very upset if he doesn't ask me to babysit when he and Lyla want to have a date night. Roy, we don't hang out. He has friends outside of this team. He helps on the field, brings intel from the Glades, and that's it. Sometimes, he eats take-out here with us or back in the old one. But no, I wouldn't say that we're good friends."  
  
"And Oliver?"  
  
Now, I think we're getting the meat of this conversation. She's good, this Gorgeous Laurel.  
  
"Yes and no. For a while, for most of the past two years, the only thing we had in common was this Arrow business. He needed tech support, I was more than qualified to provide it. Then we expanded it to include QC business. He needed an Executive Assistant and a cover story for me, and I was overqualified for it but had no choice but to be part of that as well. But it has always been only that, Laurel. We--"  
  
"So when he made that reference to the TV show you watched last weekend, he was lying?"  
  
"No. That's a new development, Laurel. A two-month old development." How is that any of her business? Unless … _Oh_.  
  
"Why did you join this team, Laurel?" I cross my arms on my chest and tilt my head up to look her straight in the eyes. She fidgets again and looks away.  
  
"Because if you joined this team in a weird bid to get _your Ollie_ back, because you have this grand idea in your head that you two are meant to be together, find another way to achieve that goal. I don't care how you do it. Show up naked in his apartment or something. Or cook him a meal -- he really likes mac  & cheese, for some reason, and those come in boxes so not much effort needed on your part, right?. Or confess your feelings. Tell him that you want him back. I'm sure he will be more than happy to get the Ollie and Laurel show started up again. But don't use this team to get him back. As it is, you're a liability to this team. Because when you're out in the field, everyone knows that Oliver would be paying attention to your safety to fully cover Digg's and Roy's backs. And if Digg and Roy get hurt out on the field because the Arrow was too busy watching _The_ Laurel's back, I swear, I would ruin the two of you. I don't know how. And I don't know how long or how much that will take me -- but I will destroy you and Oliver. I will--"  
  
"Felicity."  
  
Shit, when did he get here? How much has he heard? I thought I was alone with Laurel.  
  
"You were. Diggle and I got here just now. What's going on?" Oliver lays hand on my shoulder and turns me to face him. "I promised you, didn't I, Felicity? That I will not let anyone distract me from having Digg's and Roy's backs out on the field. That I will do anything to protect them and save them when they get into trouble. Nothing will keep from doing that. That Laurel in our team changes nothing. I promised you. Yes?"  
  
His hands on my upper arm stroking up and down in a way that's so distracting, and he's looking at me like he wants me to read his mind because what's in there would assure me, show me, that he's still the Oliver I believe in. I let him. I allow myself to get lost in his presence. _Gosh, where is this melodrama coming from?!?_  
  
There's a throat clearing to my left, and it's been going on for a while, I think. Like a buzzing in my ear. I look away from Oliver to see that Digg has taken up a spot to my left, between my back and Laurel. He's got his arms folded across his chest and he's looking at me with a smirk on his face.  
  
"One thing you're going to have to get used to, Laurel, now that you're part of the team, if you plan to stay, is when these two behave like they're alone with each other in a roomful of people. It's annoying. But it's a Team Arrow thing. You're going to have to live with it."   
  


**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted here: http://outoftheclosetshipper.tumblr.com/post/88839126233/olicity-ff-4-alone-with-you


End file.
